I bought two iOS 6 iPhones from China so you don't have to

How do they do it? These Chinese sellers seem to have an endless supply of iOS 6 iPhone 5 models. I bit the bullet and bought two of them so you don't have to

[@scottdunn4506]

Actually the logic boards could be old new stocks and another theory could be is a lot of people don’t update their phones especially older people

[@ilbufalantdellefigurine4488]

Most likely they’re some sort of untethered downgrade. Those phones are garbage, not a single part is original

[@damian9303]

I knew someone from around these parts and they would get recycled phones en masse running these early iOS versions that would’ve otherwise been scrapped for their bare metals, if it’s able to show the skuemorphic battery while plugged in then it’s legit blobs. These usually are found passcode locked with personal data but they’re still able to dump the blobs and restore back to factory settings through external tools (hence the modem firmware being latest)

[@LeonTichy]

@@damian9303 ballin, solving internet mysteries....

[@Fer89]

They are refurbished phones with cheap screens, chasis, speakers etc, the only real thing is the mobo.

[@sherme]

these definitely have custom housings as the regular 5 did not come in gold, only black and slate. you should've honestly went for the blue one as i really do wonder what that would look like

[@nmgvjvjvfnv]

They also could have used the iPhone 5s housing if it fits.

[@sherme]

@@nmgvjvjvfnv unfortunately they arent interchangable, even the 5 and 5c which are essentially the same phone are very different on the inside which prevent you from just swapping them. maybe with some serious modifications.

[@OfficialRodrigoLeon]

I always thought that iPhone 5’s from China were scams, but after seeing this video it looks very interesting.

[@megatronskneecap]

They replace the internal SSD's with SSD's that have pre-installed iOS 6 on them and then flash the phones EPROM to accept iOS 6 again. The bad looking screen is just because it was replaced probably.

[@XiaomisMascot]

keep up the good work man!

[@Guertena]

Gold iPhone 5, that's something

[@Joshtheweatherman]

More than likely the motherboards were new old stock, and they put them in aftermarket frames. So technically, it is a new iPhone but it's been repurposed.

[@sammyspan649]

I got an iPhone 3GS like that and it is a REAL iPhone 3GS & iPhone 5 should be the same story minus the home button & back housing

[@iPhoneOS_]

They definitely found a method for downgrading to iOS 6 and decided to sell iPhones out of it instead of releasing a free software to everyone. And the lack of auto brightness is a concern for the display used also. Great video btw buddy! Your title is accurate af

[@Arkid77777]

Thanks I always wondered this. I saw on a Reddit post the backlight bleed on the screen in the dark is awful, is that true?

[@Attakai_The_Kitty]

Plug one of these in while it’s turned off and charged, should be interesting

[@peachy1606]

What happens I don't have one

[@SA2180]

So, an iOS 7 or later battery symbol might appear? Or the Chinese-exclusive full battery graphic might come up? Just guessing

[@Attakai_The_Kitty]

@@SA2180 the Chinese exclusive battery screen should come up

[@scotttrongkaew]

@@SA2180 So now It can be downgrade to iOS6 with iOS 7.x blobs which is untethered,but battery symbol, charging symbol still iOS7.

[@ervinjamesnavales7428]

These are refurbished iphones that was previously broken but they managed to fixed it with aftermarket parts (home button, housing, lcd screen) the main logic board are legitimate. They managed to downgrade OS by jailbreaking those phones and use future restore to sign those ios versions on the clientside without the need of online sign validation from apple. Again those are not fake iPhones the boxes and peripherals (usb and lightning connector) are third party but not the device itself.

[@sweetcraft557]

Do you have a link to order them?

[@Keiran01]

Very interesting that the modem firmware was 11.80 since that version is for iOS 10.3.4, they must be using purple restore and an internal apple VPN to downgrade these devices from iOS 10 back to 6. Great video btw, I'm gonna kep an eye out for one of these listings in the future.

[@mossystonebrick]

my guess is they could also be using legit blobs on devices that are password locked, restoring them using latest baseband? i haven’t put much research into the 32-bit restore process

[@Keiran01]

@@mossystonebrick oh definitly, I didn't even think of that lol, although I don't know if there would be that many iPhone 5s' in the wild with iOS 6 blobs since I think jailbreak tools stopped automatically saving blobs around the end os iOS 5. It's probably a combination of many different ways but I doubt that information will be made public any time soon unfortunately

[@DaniiiAy]

7:15 the baseband version is from iOS 10 so it probably was downgraded

[@mossystonebrick]

I got one of these myself. Some things to look for anyone else in the comments: - Most of these ARE downgraded with blobs. Where? I do not know where they came from! - BE AWARE of the fact the models sent out are random and the one I received was a china iPhone 5 which meant it only supported 3G. (haha anyone wanna swap... got the fictional timeline thing in shambles rn) otherwise they are great for just iOS 6!

[@ninobillone6366]

deamn cool video

[@HypeXesk]

Why would i do that when linux can be themed to look like window xp

[@Jacktheprosplatoonplayer]

So I know how they are doing this I have one and I never knew I saw a gold one on eBay for like 10 bucks and got it and it had a lot of Chinese apps. now what they are doing is using some kind of windows (or linux) and they jailbreak broken iPhone 5’s then they buy $5 screens and then 12$ frames and then they take everything from the old frame and put it into the new one and then use something to get it down to 6.0.1 but the one I got was on iOS 10

[@LeonTichy]

Yeah there is no publicly accessible tool to downgrade it. They gotta have a custom software to do these shenanigans. I got my iPhone 5 to boot iOS 6 but tethered only. There used to be a downgrade tool but that was during iOS 7 days. Nothing for the iOS 10. Had to downgrade to 8.4.1 before n1ghtshade tethered downgrade.

[@megatronskneecap]

They replace the internal SSD's with SSD's that have pre-installed iOS 6 on them and then flash the phones EPROM to accept iOS 6 again. The bad looking screen is just because it was replaced probably.@@LeonTichy

[@mouseking7220]

6:46 My eyes are fooling me, as the black text looks red, but after pausing, it looks black.

[@JackGoodwin-mm9gc]

5:14 Instant replay

[@ilbufalantdellefigurine4488]

The display and everything except for the motherboard is a chinese replica

[@longpro.chinhgoc]

As a collector I can say those china iphones were definitely crap. The modem firmware is 11.80.00 which is not the original iPhone 5 baseband version on iOS 6.1.2. The correct one is 3.04.25.

[@joelhochhalter638]

It’s a fake iPhone, but it works?

[@Angrybirdstellafan]

Did you traveled All the way to China, Just to get these phones?

[@nmgvjvjvfnv]

No, probably ordered it from some Chinese seller

[@bryanistok8021]

Nice video like+sub♥

[@andreadibitonto6709]

chinese

[@Patrickair4444]

It fake iPhone 5

[@willian4428]

i always find funny when north americans make these videos to bash China despite the fact most of their tech comes from there.

[@GoJot]

Hey guys, I found the CCP cheerleader 🐻

[@CR1992..]

Our tech doesn't come from China, it's assembled there. China doesn't create technology, they back engineer by stealing other people's intellectual properties and reproducing things like this. Their drones are copied, military fighter jets copied, aircraft carriers copied and you can even put those next to American or European made crafts and you'll see how clearly they copied. Some of their companies might improve on something copied but that's not creating. I'm saying this as someone who has used Xiaomi and loved it but they're definitely copies.